Stream Testing 1 August 2014

It was great that it was a fine day today despite the predictions of rain!  A small band of trained stream testers from Room 12, 13 and 14 came down with me to take the readings and to find if there were any invertebrates in our catch today.

We were pleased to have Ms Meikle accompany us. She is learning just what we do and will help us with the testing when she can.

There was no smell today and the water was flowing sluggishly. The water was cloudy where we usually take our samples but we noticed that this cloudy water was coming from a drain that was emptying into the stream. The following photo shows the change in the water just a little way away from where the water was flowing into the stream. 

You can see the clearer water on the left hand side of this picture...

We don't like to see cloudy water going into the stream... is it water from washing cars...?

Up the stream you can see how much cleaner the water was...



Here are our stream measurements:
Air temperature: 20 degrees
Water temperature: 15 degrees
Clarity: 11cm (very poor clarity today compared to last time and it hadn't rained for the last 2 days)

You can see just how dirty the water was ...

Invertebrates: snails (plenty of snails and one was a very large one!) and one damselfly. We were happy to see the damselfly as it is in the yellow section of our identification chart. These animals live in medium clean water.

The sinker we use for measuring clarity...

The mysterious golfball....we find some odd things in the water.

Nathan wants to fish out the bed-head out of the stream by the bridge... with his Dad's help...

                                           
Grateful thanks to Troy, Matthew, George, Nathan, Najwah, Jasmin, Richelle, and Aliah.